caulfield12

Two bad companies.

Donaldson/Ramirez or his former 3B ex Royals teammate who took his knee out and started the avalanche of bad in 2022...?

De Boer was hired by Bama because he won at every single level. Grifol and Getz haven't even been winners since university. Hahn didn't win a thing but a spot on the Harvard law review due to connections and nepotism. And De Boer was also 5-0 against his top rivals...but Lanning in particular at Oregon. Other than Smart...no better choices in the country. Otoh, Getz and Grifol would struggle mightily to get similar jobs at any of the other 29 big league teams.

And already agreed to keep an incompetent manager in place as a condition. Or worse yet...believed it was 90/95% the players and not flaws in incorporating or messaging the so called Royals' way was the actual problem within the organization.

Yeah that was it...and it was like totally out of nowhere.

It's Leasure Eder Santos Kopech Nastrini for me...not all that sold on Mena. Will also be watching if Carela/NYY and those two Dodgers' arms for the Korean intl signing $$$ go anywhere at all.

Bannister coming from SF is sort of positive...I guess. And obviously he already was aware of Katz from his work in California. That said...the proof will be in the pudding. And they honestly don't have much to work with outside some of the interesting AA/AAA arms they injected into the system around the deadline last year...along with Schulz and then another group of A ball arms with 3-4 maybe 5 legit prospects in there. They deserve at least three seasons to demonstrate progress together.

Or another in a long string of bad reliever moves that just burned through money that could have been pooled together for 1 and possibly 2 All-Star quality position players.

Joel Zumaya - esque if executed well. Not a starter and not durable enough to even consider it. And Zaidi isn't known around the game for being dumb. Quite the opposite. But this one feels more desperate than anything.

The key prism to view what's going on right now is how many of these players acquired are future above average big league starters (rosters as of today) and how many can be flipped for someone who will actually move the meter forward...in a positive direction? That's the main source of frustration. It's not even dumping Cease and Robert. It's that "hitting the ground running" has actually led to tearing the entire team down to the studs in a way that looks like a 3-4-5 year rebuild in the worst division in baseball.. having to hit the Cease and Robert trades exactly right or already behind the 8 ball. When they are once again willing to give 3-4-5 year deals...then we will know it's time to actually start paying attention to what's going on. And that's at least two years away. There (likely) won't be any jump starts to take things seriously like the Cubs pulled off with Jon Lester to notify fans know the rebuild was ready to genuinely kick off, that fans could start dream a little... And that requires a Top Ten farm system...not a Top Twenty one. And this Cease trade should put Sox into the 12-15 if executed well by Getz. The another year to move Robert for the next boatload of legit prospects.

Except Los Angeles…

Royals had four years, precisely. 2013-2016. 2017 already well on their way to a tear down. For every Elias or Hahn that waits due to ownership for favorable market conditions to eventually somehow favor them, a SD will jump in and take away a Machado, or the Phillies with Harper and Wheeler. The ONLY time this worked in FA for the Sox was when only COL needed a 1B, so they got Abreu before 2014 in a two team race…and then the Cuban Connection was enough to push Robert from St. Louis to Chicago despite actually being outbid by a historically much better franchise. Who picks Baltimore over roughly 23-25 big league markets? Maybe the National Aquarium…or USS Constitution.

He is clearly more Altuve/Biggio than Madrigal according to all O’s fans… Let them persist in their delusions. Let them try to thread the needle just like the Rays do nearly every single year…moving out those vets with 2-3 years remaining on their big league contracts. Let Bieber get hurt again while costing CLE significant payroll space…or Glasnow. Or Snell following in the footsteps of Rodon/Cortes, etc.

Montgomery is definitely worth more now. Flaherty has/had been declining for roughly three years…and still has a relatively high value because of the lack of quality AND affordable pitching. With half the trams in baseball hamstring financially by RSN revenue generation uncertainty…Cease is worth a ton. He’s the difference between SD competing and missing out on another wild card, where anything can and dud happen in 2020 and 2022.

Odds are it will end up at 0-3 or 3-5 fWAR or something like that with a brand new pitching regime in place…and especially with an above average defensive team versus bottom 3-5 in the entire sport.

Especially with the writing increasingly on the wall about an accompanying Luis Robert trade as well.

Let’s take this improved defensive team out for a spin and see what happens. However, odds are at least 2-3 and even 3-5 critical starters will get injured in spring training, when teams are much more desperate than mid January to make moves. And Dylan Cease is one of the most disciplined pitchers in baseball in terms of his mental and physical workout routines.

Nobody in a million years would have thought Adam Eaton would net Giolito, Lopez AND Dunning based off of one really successful season accompanied with a position change to RF from center and massive jump in assists. What would that equivalent be from the Orioles’ system today? It only takes ONE GM out of 28 to crack. One. And Getz has a lot more job security than virtually EVERY GM in baseball due to JR.

Wuhan, Hubei, China High pollution/smog/haze numbers today though. 68°Hi RealFeel® 70° RealFeel Shade™ 66° Partly sunny and pleasantly warm; air quality will be very unhealthy Max UV Index3 Moderate WindENE 4 mph Wind Gusts8 mph Probability of Precipitation25% Probability of Thunderstorms0% Precipitation0.00 in

Also Kopech Crochet Santos Leasure, etc. Can’t hardly get any worse than the pit they’re in right now. Worth noting Phillips’ defense has been trending downhill across three seasons and 30 the borderline for speed based players. Not the Royal and Ray we remember. Offense similar to Adam Engel in 2022-23. https://www.fangraphs.com/players/michael-a-taylor/11489/stats?position=OF Michael A. Taylor could dramatically improve pitching lines.

And a top 30 player in all of baseball over the span of 3 and 4 consecutive years. Much better better than Montas and Severino. Benintendi got $75 million at a similar age for one solid 2.8 fear supported partly by the Yankees' offense in that 2022 season...and ignoring the 2 1/2 seasons right before that when he basically fell off a cliff.

No way he gets less than Jean Segura at that age. "Segura will earn $6.5 million in 2023 and $8.5 million in 2024, and his contract includes a $10 million club option with a $2 million buyout for 2025. Segura, 32, spent the previous four seasons playing against the Marlins as a member of the Philadelphia Phillies."

Why you want him: Well, not because of 2023. The two-time All-Star and 2019 AL batting champion labored through a miserable campaign while dealing with injuries and whatever general malaise has befallen the Chicago White Sox. It’s difficult to fathom the hitting talent that logged four consecutive seasons with a .300 average or better vanished, but it is reasonable to think Anderson might be approaching a defensive shift to second base. Still, some team is going to take a shot on a hitter at an up-the-middle spot who ranked among the 30 most valuable position players between 2019 and 2022. What it will take to get him: Anderson is a candidate for a one-year pillow contract. Those tend to guarantee something between $10 million and the qualifying offer number. Yahoo.com/sports Let's see if Anderson gets more than $13 million...they already paid the $1 million buyout.

All those great character guys rubbing off. Royals’ milk and cookies guys. No porn. No alcohol. Must join FCA to be a part of the one and true Brotherhood.

He’s now known as Jose. And not related to Franco/3B.